Dissolution Kinetics of Hot Compressed Oxide Glasses

The chemical durability of oxide glasses is an important property for a wide range of applications and can in some cases be tuned through composition optimization. However, these possibilities are relatively limited because around 3/5 of the atoms in most oxide glasses are oxygens. An alternative approach involves post-treatment of the glass. In this work, we focus on the effect of hot compression on dissolution kinetics because it is known to improve, for example, elastic moduli and hardness, whereas its effect on chemical durability is poorly understood. Specifically, we study the bulk glass dissolution rate of phosphate, silicophosphate, borophosphate, borosilicate, and aluminoborosilicate glasses, which have been compressed at 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 GPa at the glass transition temperature (<i>T</i>_g). We perform weight loss and supplementary modifier leaching measurements of bulk samples immersed in acid (pH 2) and neutral (pH 7) solutions. Compression generally improves the chemical durability as measured from weight loss, but the effect is highly composition- and pressure-dependent. As such, we show that the dissolution mechanisms depend on the topological changes induced by permanent densification, which in turn are a function of the changes in the number of nonbridging oxygens and the network cross-linking. We also demonstrate a direct relationship between the chemical durability and the number of chemical topological constraints per atom (<i>n</i>_c) acting within the molecular network

Pressure-Induced Changes in Interdiffusivity and Compressive Stress in Chemically Strengthened Glass

Glass exhibits a significant change in properties when subjected to high pressure because the short- and intermediate-range atomic structures of glass are tunable through compression. Understanding the link between the atomic structure and macroscopic properties of glass under high pressure is an important scientific problem because the glass structures obtained via quenching from elevated pressure may give rise to properties unattainable under standard ambient pressure conditions. In particular, the chemical strengthening of glass through K⁺-for-Na⁺ ion exchange is currently receiving significant interest due to the increasing demand for stronger and more damage-resistant glass. However, the interplay among isostatic compression, pressure-induced changes in alkali diffusivity, compressive stress generated through ion exchange, and the resulting mechanical properties are poorly understood. In this work, we employ a specially designed gas pressure chamber to compress bulk glass samples isostatically up to 1 GPa at elevated temperature before or after the ion exchange treatment of a commercial sodium–magnesium aluminosilicate glass. Compression of the samples prior to ion exchange leads to a decreased Na⁺–K⁺ interdiffusivity, increased compressive stress, and slightly increased hardness. Compression after the ion exchange treatment changes the shape of the potassium–sodium diffusion profiles and significantly increases glass hardness. We discuss these results in terms of the underlying structural changes in network-modifier environments and overall network densification